Although capable of domestication, the Cheetah is, when roused, anything but a pleasant animal to come across. Two colonists from the Cape of Good Hope happened to meet one while they were out shooting Gazelles, and, unfortunately for themselves, pursued it. “The roughness of the road retarded the animal’s flight, and a ball reached it. It immediately turned upon the hunter who had wounded it, and, leaping upon him, pulled him from his Horse, and a hand-to-hand conflict began between the two adversaries. The other hunter dismounted and hastened to succour his comrade, at the risk of hitting him as well as the animal from which he wished to deliver him. His shot was badly aimed. The noise of the discharge changed the aspect of the combat, for the Cheetah abandoned the man whom he had thrown down, to fling himself with redoubled fury on the new assailant, who had not even time to draw his hunting-knife. The animal seized him by the head, and, without letting go, rolled with him to the bottom of a ravine. It was of no avail that the first man, left alive, but horribly mutilated, dragged himself to the new battle-field; the wounds of his companion were mortal, and he only had the melancholy satisfaction of giving the _coup de grâce_ to the animal, who was already exhausted by loss of blood.” It is curious, considering the constant domestication of this animal in India, that it does not breed at all readily in confinement. In fact, Mr. Bartlett, who probably knows more about the matter than any one, says that it has never to his knowledge bred in England; but Dr. Günther affirms that it has bred in the Gardens in Frankfort. The young animal is covered with soft brown hair, without spots, a curious fact, quite reversing the usual order of things, for, as we have seen, the young of the Lion, Puma, and other one-coloured Cats, are distinctly spotted. The black mark on the cheek appears first, and then the body spots. Mr. Jerdon gives an interesting account of a Cheetah kitten belonging to him:--